Tears and Raindrops
by Alabaster Bootykins
Summary: After Harry's funeral, Ron and Hermione finally deal with their feelings for each other. Just a one shot. Please R&R!


**Summary: After Harry dies in the War, Ron and Hermione are left to pick up the pieces of their own lives without him--together.**

**Disclaimer: I'm almost afraid to tell you this since I know it will crush your hopes, but I don't really own Harry Potter. JK Rowling does!**

**Author's Notes: Well, I got sick of writing all those long stories, so I thought, hey! why not write a one shot fic? I was in a really angsty mood, and kinda lonely, so I wrote an angsty romance story. Angst isn't really what I normally do, but this is my best try. Hope you like! Please tell me what you think!**

Tears and Raindrops

by Alabaster Bootykins: Barbie

Oh God. How could this happen?

I stared down at the emerald-colored coffin that was slowly being lowered into the black earth with a strange, suppressed sort of anguish, hollow in my gut. _Emerald, _I thought. _Just like his eyes._ I squeezed my own eyes shut to block out the thought, to keep myself from crying. I'd cried enough already since it had happened to keep me for the rest of my lifetime. Why him? Why couldn't I have died instead? I wasn't as important. Not in the scheme of things.

I finally ventured to open my eyes again, staring at the points of my shiny black shoes after those few moments of complete darkness. But I couldn't look back down _there. _The reality of what this meant was only beginning to sink in now. I'd known that if this happened, terrible consequences would follow, and the thought of what could happen now made me more scared that I'd ever been before to meet the oncoming fate. But... What made me even more heartbroken was that I would never see him again. He'd been my best friend for so long... And he was gone. Harry would never come back.

Harry. Oh, Harry. My eyes fell onto his coffin one last time and I was overcome with a horrid, formless torrent of emotions. There was a weight sinking in my chest; my breathing was suddenly shallow and labored... I had to get out of there.

Barely able to see where I was headed throuigh my blurry screen of tears, I somehow found a bench to sit on in the open park. It was so cold outside. I shivered and glanced up into the sky. If it had ever been sunny before, it was now just a distant memory, a haunting echo of happiness. The clouds were getting darker by the hour, as if ominous warnings of the dark future to come. And it seemed fitting at a time like this. I just wanted to clear my mind, to never think of it again. The thought brought a small melancholy smile to my cracked lips. Me, Hermione Granger, know-it-all of the century, not wanting to think again? Ron would be shocked.

I glanced back at the funeral party and immediately picked out his tufts of red hair from the crowd. His whole body was shaking with sobs. I could tell even from this distance. I wanted so much to be there for him, to comfort him while he cried, to maybe cry into his chest for a little while and have him comfort me, but I held myself back. If I did that, I'd have to face up to the fact that Harry... wasn't coming back. Oh God, here I went again...

Wobbling dangerously, I got to my feet again and sped even further away from the funeral procession. I could still hear their voices far behind me. Ghosts of a past and a future that I just couldn't face. Couldn't they tell that I didn't want to see them? They were all so familiar, and yet their faces were so distant and strange to my eyes.

I sank down the side of a huge, protective tree and sighed deeply. It looked like rain. _The Muggle weather report hadn't said anything about rain... God, Hermione, don't you ever stop?_ I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to clear my mind, if it was remotely possible for me to do so. Little speckles of water landed on my nose, and then my hair, and then my bared knee. I shivered with discomfort.

The voices were coming back in my direction, and I slumped down, tryping to make myself invisible. I doubted I could talk to them about what happened if I wanted to. There were too many feeling to deal with, too many conflicting ideas in my brain to possibly explain. So I kept my eyes closed as they passed, and no one said a thing to me. I was resorting back to my childhood mentality-- it I can't see them, they can't see me. _Maybe if I wish hard even, I'll just disappear and no one will have to worry about poor little me and how I'm dealing, no one with shower me with false sympathy and ignorant understandings of what I'm going through. None of them understand. They can't understand._

"Hermione?" Except maybe Ron.

I shook my head stubbornly. I was already so confused, and being around him only confused me more. Besides, I didn't think I could deal with anything other than the solitude right now. "Go away," I said, embarrassed at the tremble in my voice.

"Come on, 'Mione. At least look at me."

I shook my head again, this time a little harder.

His shoulder brushed up against mine, and I could feel heat radiating off him in the cold, soggy afternoon. It was strange comforting, and yet a bit disconcerting, as it always was when he was this near. "You want me to go get an umbrella? The rain's already getting harder," he offered.

"Don't," I found myself murmuring. Now that he was here, I couldn't bear the thought of him leaving my side. "Let's just sit, okay?"

"All right," Ron breathed. His voice was raw, as hoarse as I'd ever heard it. _Just comfort him..._

My eyes opened again, and I watched the strong line of his jaw as a muscle there twitched. He was in so much pain. Unconsciously, I reached out a hand and set it on his, giving it a tiny squeeze. Before I knew what was happening, big tears were falling from his forlorn eyes onto our linked hands. I rested my head on his shoulder in what I hoped was a comforting gesture, but I soon found myself bawling as well. And I wasn't ashamed. Being with Ron brought back so many memories--both good and bad. Even more than that, he was someone I trusted. Someone I cared for. Maybe a little more than I should have.

"I--just--can't--b-believe--he's--gone," I stuttered through labored breaths. It felt so good to get it out there in the open. I hadn't realized how much I'd been keeping inside until that moment.

He brought our hands to his lips and kissed the back of mine gently, sending little zings of electricity to my skin. "I know," he whispered. "Me neither."

"A-And the way he went... I mean, I thought, I'd always though that he would win."

"We all did. We were wrong."

"Oh, please don't say that, Ronald," I stammered quickly. Harry had fulfilled that prophecy all right, but not in a way anyone had expected. We'd been foolish, careless. Overconfident. But now it was too late to fix things. Harry was... I let out another strangled sob, hunching away from Ron.

"'Mione, it really is terrible what happened," he murmured, as if not trying to disturb me, "but we just have to move on without him now, make strategies--"

"How can we?" I demanded, my voice getting a bit louder than I'd intended. "Our world as we know it is going to be destroyed!"

"Is that really what you're thinking about right now?" Undisguised anger made its way into his voice.

I was flabbergasted. "How could I _not_ be thinking that at a time like this?"

"God, I didn't know you were so heartless."

These words, especially from Ron, cut like a knife. I tried not to show it. "What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?"

"This is Harry bloody funeral!" His shout echoed through the otherwise empty park.

He was right. All I could think of was myself. I'd barely even thought about Harry this whole time. Another batch of tears tumbled down my cheeks and I struggled free of his grip, wandering aimlessly away.

"Where are you going?" His voice had lost all the anger; it was now soft and tender again.

"I don't know," I mumbled.

Wet footsteps came up behind me. But I couldn't bring myself to look up at him again. My eyes fell onto the soggy ground, watched as the raindrops made tiny splashes in the grass. My whole body was sopping wet, but I didn't care. It really didn't matter if I got a cold now, did it? Or amnesia...

"Look, I'm sorry. I know this is hard on you too," Ron was saying. I could barely hear it over the sound of blood rushing in my head. So I was silent. We walked in the heartbreaking quiet for a long while, his fingers laced with mind softly, before we found shelter under a little roof that housed a picnic table. I stared out at the rain, and then at Ron, and felt a strange, unplacable emotion mixed in with the confusion from before. I wasn't sure was it meant; I wasn't sure I wanted to know either.

I smiled weakly. "Ronald, you look like a soaking wet puppy dog," I informed him. He _did_ look awfully cute, with his straggly red locks hanging over his sad eyes.

He managed a tiny smile back at me. "So do you." Color was rising in his cheeks.

Awkwardness formed a new kind of tension between us, and I wondered what had happened to change the casual, almost flippant relationship we'd had back at Hogwarts. But then its obviousness brought tears to my eyes. Harry. Of course. Now he was gone, and everything had changed. Even me and Ron.

I rested my head against the cold stone pillar, soothing my flying thoughts and oncoming headache. My eyes fell onto Ron's lanky frame, and I couldn't help but admire his perfect-sized build, the casual way his arms hung at his sides, the adorable way he flipped his hair back as it fell into his eyes... But I quickly shook those thoughts away. How could I be thinking this _now,_ of all times? Maybe I really was as heartless as Ron had said I was.

"I'm so tired of it. The war, I mean. I don't know if I can do it anymore. Harry was always there before..." Ron trailed off, obviously in deep pain. He sounded so weak, so unlike himself. I went to him and wrapped my arms around him, burying my face into his chest. I could hear his loud heartbeat and the gradual rise and fall of his breathing.

I sighed into the loose black fabric of his robes. "Me too. But we can't just give up, can we?"

"Spose we can't," he admitted reluctantly, running his hands through my wet, probably frizzy hair. I sighed again, but this time in contentment instead of sadness. It felt so right, to be here in Ron's arms, with his fingers comfortably nestled in my hair, that I was having a hard time staying sad. He'd always had that effect on me, but I couldn't remember one time in our long history together where his touch had felt like this. Like heat. No... Like home. Like I was right where I belonged.

"I love you."

The words had escaped my mouth without a thought, but now I recoiled from him, more shocked with myself than with anything else. I turned away, embarrassed. Yes, I loved him. But I hadn't been planning to tell him here, like this. Not like this. Ron was silent for a few long moments, and they seemed to me to stretch on forever. I wished he would say something. I wished _I_ could say something.

"What?" was his question when he finally spoke.

"Um... I said... thank you?" I lied stupidly, trying to find the right words. How could "I love you" be so right when everything else I said was so wrong?

Ron shook his head in disbelief. "That's not what you said," he said slowly, though he seemed to be unsure himself. "Did you say you loved me?"

"Of course not," I shot back defensively.

"I'm pretty sure that you did." A small smirk crept onto his face, making me even more nervous than I'd been before. Why did he have to be so good looking?

"All right, all right, I said it!" I admitted, insecure. I didn't look back at him; I was too scared.

There was a little pause. "Did you _mean _it?"

"Well... yes." There. The words were out. If only I didn't feel so stupid... And why wasn't he talking? He needed to say something!

But the response I got was the sensation of his arms wrapping around my waist. My breath caught in my throat, and I tried to breath out a shaky stream of air. "I love you, too," he said straight into my neck, the heat tickling my ear and sending a little electric bolt to my heart.

A wave of amazed relief washed over me, and I turned in his hands to face him. His face had split into a watery grin, and I realized in an instant that mine had as well. How long had I waited to hear those words from him? And now it had happened. At what would have otherwise been the lowest point in my life. Funny how things worked out.

"Well, I'm glad that's worked out then," I murmured, my smile fading into something else as I watched him watch me, our faces only inches apart.

His large, warm hands cupped my chin, wiping away with his thumbs the tears and raindrops that I had forgotten existed in the past few minutes, and tentatively brought his lips to mine. I pressed into him, enjoying the snesation, the reality, of what had happened to us. Another set of shivers overtook my body, but he quickly calmed them down as he kissed me again, his hands moving down to the small of my back, holding me close. Instinctively, my arms wrapped around the back of his neck, my fingers entwining with soft, wet strands of red hair. My whole body felt so taken away from the moment, like it couldn't be truth just because it was so perfect. But as I opened my eyes and pulled away from Ron's flushed face, the perfection didn't just face away like some stress-induced daydream. He was still there, smiling at me. I hugged him tightly.

"Mmm... What's this for?" he asked.

"For being here," I whispered, kissing him quickly. Tears were falling down both of our faces, but we barely felt them in our wet happiness.

"Well, you're welcome." Ron's thumb wiped away one of my tears.

I looked away from him into the misty park and was slowly brought back to reality. Where would we go from here? There were still so many horrors to face out there without Harry, and despite myself I doubted if we would even survive them. Some part of me wanted so desperately to believe that we could make it, but the other part, the dark, war-hardened part, knew how terrible and difficult and dangerous it would be.

"What now?"

"Dunno," Ron answered, and we stared out into the rain together, only wishing we could have told each other the truth earlier, when there was still time for us.

**A/N: I would like it very much if you'd tell me what you think. :)**


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